Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

A week or so ago I included Ryne Sandberg as a dark-horse candidate for the IronPigs managerial job, and Tuesday a source "with knowledge of the situation" confirmed to the Philadelphia Inquirer that the Hall of Famer is a candidate to become the IronPigs manager next season.

Chuck Lamar, the Phillies assistant general manager for player development, told Bob Brookover he would not comment on the search process.

Sandberg, part of one of the most infamous deals in Phillies history (Larry Bowa and Sandberg, then a minor leaguer, as a throw-in to the Cubs for Ivan DeJesus), was named the Pacific Coast League's Manager of the Year this past season while guiding the Cubs' Iowa affiliate to an 82-62 record in his first year at Triple-A and his fourth as a minor-league manager. Many speculated that Sandberg was the leading candidate to replace Cubs manager Lou Piniella, and Sandberg himself made no secret of his desire to get the job.

The Cubs, however, selected Mike Quade (ironically, a former manager at Scranton when the Red Barons were the Phillies Triple-A affiliate), and Sandberg decided to leave the organization for which he became one of the greatest second baseman in major league history.

Sandberg is also thougth to be a candidate for several major league coaching openings -- Ozzie Guillen of the cross-town rival White Sox said he would have added Sandberg to his staff to replace Joey Cora had Cora been successful in landing the managerial job in Milwaukee -- and it's believed that he would take such a position over staying as a minor-league manager.

The 51-year-old Sandberg was the Phillies' 20th round pick out of high school in 1978 and rose quicklly through the system, including a season at Reading in 1980 where he hit .310 with double-figures in all three power categories (21 doubles, 12 triples, 11 homers), 79 RBIs and 32 stolen bases. He hit .293 at Triple-A Oklahoma City in 1981, then was plucked from the system by former Phillies GM and manager Dallas Green in the Bowa trade and hie .271 as a rookie in 1982, the first of his 16 big-league seasons.

An announcement on the IronPigs manager is expected later this month or in early December. The Phillies must also replace their Double-A manager after announcing that Steve Roadcap wouldn't be returning for a third season to Reading.

One of the Phillies two Class A managers, Dusty Wathan (Clearwater) or Mark Parent (Reading), are expected to fill that job. They are also candidates for the IronPigs job as well.

Thanks for all of the hard work on this web site. I admit, I have not been on this website in a long time, however it was joy to find it again. It is such an important topic and ignored by so many, even professionals! I do enjoy writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are lost simply just trying to figure out how to begin.